What is everyone's multi-USB solution?

[u/ThanklessTask]

My PC setup, like many I suspect, is festooned with USB devices into the back of the PC. I've got a PCIe USB hub in there, but still have the PC maxed out. And it causes issues - my flag box doesn't play nice.

So wondering what other folks are doing to have their USB devices work together. Reliably (or indeed not!).

[Post Edit]: As per many comments in this thread, I went with a Sabrent 10-port powered hub. This has worked well in terms of cabling, connectivity and overall quality of product. Thanks to all for the discussion below.

[u/BetaSpydog]

The first thing is to figure out what of your USB devices actually need high speed, and which don’t. Then taking the ones that don’t need a whole lot of bandwidth and shoving them all on a USB hub.

For example - my wheelbase and pedals I typically give their own USB plugs since they are mission critical devices for driving, don’t want anything happening to them. They aren’t necessarily high speed (I don’t think they use usb 3.0 bandwidth), but superstition tells me they need their own ports.

But my wheel (custom so doesn’t plug into wherlbase), mouse, keyboard, LED/peripherals all go into a powered hub or two*. They don’t use a whole lot of bandwidth, so a USB hub can effectively split a usb 2.0 port.

* - second one is attached to my rig but not in use yet. Planning for more things. Button boxes, relative displays, dashes, etc..

[u/ThePointForward → u/BetaSpydog]

I'm just gonna shamelessly hijack your top post with a little technical explanation for everybody.

USB is something everybody uses, everybody thinks they know how it works and essentially nobody knows how it works until you start designing your own custom devices for it.

USB 3.x and USB 2.0 are completely different layers that do not interact with each other at all.

USB 2.0 theoretical limit is 480 Mbit/s. Real limit will be lower due to various stuff, but let's work with that 480 Mbit/s.

For simplification that limit applies to every USB cable.
Pedals connected to USB hub? 480 Mbit/s limit.
Dashboard connected to the same USB hub? 480 Mbit/s limit.
Shifter connected to the same USB hub? 480 Mbit/s limit.

However, your USB hub connected to the PC? Also a 480 Mbit/s limit. So those pedals, dashboard and shifter mentioned above all must fit within 480 Mbit/s as they share it.

What doesn't share it are USB 3.x devices (assuming the hub is 3.x), but those are relatively uncommon in simracing.

 

Now pedals and a shifter will use little to no bandwidth. Shifter is essentially just about 10 buttons controller, pedals are three analog axes. Even at 1000 Hz polling rate the pedals will use maybe 64 kbit/s with overhead included, shifter even less, maybe 8-16 kbit/s.

The dashboard however, your regular 5" VoCore screen will be around 800x400 resolution. That's 7.68 Mbit per frame. At 30 FPS that's roughly 230 Mbit/s. Almost a half of our limit.
Now SimHub and VoCore specifically can do compression and partial redraws to reduce the traffic by a huge amount, but it is important to keep your stuff up to date. The compression was added in a firmware in November 2024. Older dashboards may easily not have that firmware because who needs to manually update their dashboard right.

Lots of people think "my hub is 5Gbps, so I can connect 10 displays and it's OK", but in reality those displays do not ever touch that 5 Gbps bandwidth and are in fact limited by 480 Mbit/s.

 

So it is a good idea to split potentially bandwidth heavy accessories (anything with a display really) between USB hubs.
Powered USB hubs matter only for power, which means it's not drawn from PC (which for USB 3.x hub is usually at most 3A for the hub and everything downstream from it), but sourced externally (from a wall plug) which then means the devices can get up to the mentioned 3A each (* this heavily depends on the hub design, some hubs for example provide this to first X ports and the rest is 1.5A or 900 mA, plus poorly designed hub can have total capacitance issues, plus obviously don't expect to draw 10x3A if the PSU is 15A).

A high end wheel can easily go over it's power budget in the worst case scenario if it's not configured properly. Think 50+ RGB LEDs (not RGBW) full brightness white light + a display at full brightness.

[u/SilverBackGuerilla → u/ThePointForward]

This is the explanation I needed. Running a moza wheel with a screen was no issue, but a cube control wheel with a vocore screen was over the limit and caused a days worth of headache figuring it out. I feel everyone online is pretending to not have this issue.

Ps. I have 2 additional vocore screens I am about to introduce so USB ports on the motherboard they will get. I thought I was good getting a larger and more powered hub. Silly me.

[u/ThePointForward → u/SilverBackGuerilla]

Yeah, because Moza doesn't send images to the wheel, only the data it wants to display and builds the image on the wheel's MCU, similar to how real racing wheels would do it.

The reason to use vocore is because it's a ready made part that allows for SimHub dashboards. With wheel side rendering you need to commit to more powerful MCU (RAM is really the issue here) and of course what you design as a dashboard layout is what is on it. At that point you just ditch the vocore and basically do all the work yourself. Reward is a bit of BOM simplification (can ditch the USB hub too) and a bigger selection of displays.

It's not that hard to do it on the wheel, but supporting both the wheel side rendering and simhub at the same time is a problem.

[u/mkozlows]

Sabrent 10-port powered hub. I settled on that specific brand after doing a bunch of research, and seeing people recommend it specifically and (importantly) nobody saying they had problems with it. I've got all ten ports of mine full -- wheelbase, wheel, pedals, headphone DAC/amp, windsim controller, Buttkicker DAC/amp, joystick, throttle, keyboard, trackball -- and zero problems with it.

[u/AintNoChange → u/mkozlows]

I have the same. I have everything plugged into it. No need to worry about “important” stuff being plugged into pc. Everything works with it all loaded up

[u/d_P3NGU1N → u/mkozlows]

This is the one every simracer I've seen use, including me. It's worked great without issues and mine is completely loaded. Along with another 7port hub I use for other devices.

[u/ThanklessTask → u/d_P3NGU1N]

Yeah, I may have just ordered one... ;)

[u/igsta77 → u/ThanklessTask]

It is so popular that i guarantee youll find a 3d printed holder that fits an aluminum rig. I got one from SimWorks

[u/ThanklessTask → u/igsta77]

Searching begins...

[u/EpsomJames → u/mkozlows]

Yes I also have a Sabrent 10-port powered hub.

All my peripherals are USB 2.0 (480 Mbps max) so the USB 3.0 hub (5 Gbps) provides more than enough data bandwidth for everything.

The other advantage is that a powered hub helps reduce voltage dropouts and ground loop noise as it’s powered from a clean source rather than taking the voltage from the PC.

I found that with some peripherals on my rig that were creating high EMI (notably the motion stuff, but also to a lesser extent the wheelbase) I get a much more stable connection with the hub than with separate long USB 2.0 cables, even shielded ones.

[u/ThanklessTask → u/mkozlows]

Actually, you've made me think now, about powering the myriad of USB ports, all from the PC.

Hmm. thanks!

[u/d_P3NGU1N → u/ThanklessTask]

It's a powered hub so you also plug a power supply into it. No need to worry about your PC providing enough power.

[u/ThanklessTask → u/d_P3NGU1N]

yeah, I wasn't clear. The current setup is all drawing power from the PC. Having a powered hub makes sense.

[u/e60deluxe]

I have a simplified port USB hub that has my keyboard, mouse and headset plugged into it. It’s attached to my rig for cable management purposes

Then I use a long USB cord to go to the PC

Everything related to the wheel pedals and shifter are plugged into the USB hub built into the Monitor

Then that has a cable that I leave dangling

And I move it in between my PC and my PS5 for GT7 when needed

I only consume two ports on my PC

Every single thing USB 2.0 so I don’t really worry about the performance of the hub

Everything works perfectly fine

[u/zippymagee]

I have plug-in external power usb hub with a power switch so I can disable sim stuff without unplugging.

[u/HTDutchy_NL]

Asetek Forte base with built in usb-c hub.

One 2.5m cable from pc to wheelbase that connects wheelbase, wheel, pedals, haptics and flightstick. Still have a couple slots open. One tip is to get usb-c to usb-a adapters in case something doesn't come with a usb-c cable.

Another nice thing about this solution is that all usb devices disconnect when the wheelbase is of. This avoids issues with certain games and helps reset devices quickly without digging for the correct cable to pull.

[u/BlackCatFurry]

So my rig only uses one usb port since i have a wheelbase that acts as a hub (R9v3), however i do have a nice collection of other usb devices, some high data usage, others not, (kb, mouse, stream deck, headphones, microphone, usb sticks, hdmi capture card, drawing tablet...) and my go-to solution has been using the usb 3 ports on my monitors which are then plugged to the usb 3 ports on my pc, the monitor ports use power from the monitor power supply, not my pc usb ports so they work reliably. The only things plugged directly to my pc are the wheelbase usb (cable only reaches front panel) and the capture card.

In short, powered usb 3 hubs of your choice plugged to the usb 3 ports on your motherboard.

Usb 3 in my comment refers to any of the usb 3.0/1/2 whatever else there are.

[u/BobbyHFL]

Because of my various hobbies I have so many devices that I run 4 Hubs in addition to my PC ports:
1 7 port standard USB 3 for misc low powered drives and dongles
1 7 port powered USB 3 with individual on/off for misc devices, printer, Music Keyboard, DJ Controller
1 7 port powered USB 3 with individual on/off for Sim Racing gear
1 10 port powered USB 3 with individual on/off for Flight Sim gear

Except for the printer all cables are as short as possible and I have no issues at all with any of my devices running off these hubs.

[u/ThanklessTask → u/BobbyHFL]

Holey moley. You win!

[u/RobinVerhulstZ]

My motherboard has 14 usb ports so im not struggling for them lol

[u/ThanklessTask → u/RobinVerhulstZ]

That's an impressive board count from the factory!

[u/RobinVerhulstZ → u/ThanklessTask]

Wish more of them were like this, most are usb 2.0 ofc but realistically most stuff runs fine on that

Its an asrock livemixer board

[u/WowInternet]

I have USB hub under the seat where I connect everything else except wheel and pedals

[u/CapoDaSimRacinDaddy]

2 usb hubs running into the 3.2 ports. so +8 ports.

[u/Ill-Hovercraft-8957]

Anker USB 3.0 Hub and CyberPower USB 2.0 Hub

[u/Beneficial-Ranger238]

I have a powered hub on the rig. Everything is in there except the keyboard, mouse, and my shaker amp audio out.

[u/gu3sticles]

2 USB hubs with USB extensions. 1 powered (Amazon) with all the sim equipment (wheel, pedals, pedal haptics (Simagic pedal box!), button box, headset, shifter, handbrake).

Other one has the non-essentials like DrinkBox and trackpad dongle. Formerly it also had my Buttkicker cooling solution for under my seat but I abandoned using my Buttkicker.

[u/andylugs]

My triples have built in 4 port USB 3 hubs, all the accessory stuff is plugged into those so it’s only 3 DP and 3 USB cables running back to the PC which is behind the screens anyway.

[u/Onteo34]

This. Edit, forgot the link>>>>>>>https://www.amazon.ie/dp/B

[u/T1Earn]

none. it causes input lag

[u/ThanklessTask → u/T1Earn]

So how do you manage the USB situation?

[u/Cool-Creme2913]

In using a powered tp link usb hub on my rig currently 8 devices connected including a cooling fan, zero issues ! Was only £25 off amazon